The Climb
by Beautyheart18
Summary: He made a promise to stay clean and he never dreamed of going back on his word. A narcotics anonymous meeting was the last place Reid expected to change his mind. But the roads to salvation and ruin run side by side; he may be on his way back to sanity.


First, thanks to anyone who has decided to read this story. I can't tell if I'll be quick to update (life's a little busy currently) but this story seems to be a patch of clarity in my writer's block...

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, but I do own anyone that is not mentioned in the show.

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It seemed that instead of the hour simply being late – the truth, in fact – the sun had disintegrated completely into nothingness; perhaps it was drawn into one of the mysterious holes in the cosmic world. Perhaps it had decided it was time to find a new set of planets – maybe not quite so many as nine this time around – to rule over – to be the center of the world for. Whatever the explanation was, the sun had apparently taken the moon and stars with it, for the blackness of the sky was devoid of any trace of all three. They could offer no light to those who wandered upon the surprisingly populated streets – one would think most would rather enclose themselves in their homes by then – and yet those people who walked did not seem to mind much. They were much too accustomed to starless nights to be concerned about the fact that they couldn't see three feet before their faces; even if the rather solid telephone post was shrouded in dark mist, their memory sensed its presence from what could have been miles away. There were never any collisions. This was a different world from that which thrives in the daylight; this was the underside to life – what went on behind the closed doors of the clouds. It was not so appalling to those who included such nightly travels in their routines, but for the rest of the area's population, it was probably best that the time of day – however ironic an expression that was – acted as a natural veil of secrecy. Nature apparently intended for at least that portion of life to be kept from all else.

How protective.

But for those who were not a part of this way of life – this nightly prowl, as it were – the darkness was far more foe than friend and it easily intimidated weaker spirits. Children, from the day they are able to comprehend language, are taught to fear what may lurk in the shadows – they are told that it is unsafe to wander in the night. In many cases, their guardians – they who tell the tales of evil darkness – have a valid point; it isn't recommended for one to venture into the unknown on their own, and when the hour becomes later and less and less recognizable faces are seen about the streets, the best decision would be to return home. Home where they can lock the door and forget about the vice and wickedness of the world that blackness unfortunately stands to represent – they have no need to think of the wrongs in human nature. It is difficult to ponder it – the truth – but in reality, the monsters that are spoken of in fairy tales are not so fake as the people who label the novel as a fantasy would have one believe. They have always existed. They will never leave the world; however what they will do is change form so that children and even adults – rational, intelligent adults – will not be able to see them as a true threat until it is much too late to save themselves. Evil sorcerers are con artists with wicked hearts; if one looked close enough, one would find that pretty smiles and charming, friendly – falsely so – manners are much more difficult to resist than potions and incantations.

But who was he to judge?

It hadn't struck him as a place where ones would gather to discuss their problems, this church – if it could even be called that. One would think that when a person is struggling to begin a new era in their life – a new chapter that is hopefully less depressing than the last few – that person would be brought to a place that practically screamed "support". It was difficult to say what he had expected; ironically he was sure enough of his expectations to be put off when he first arrived, but now that he had been occupying the hard, strikingly uncomfortable wooden seat for God knows how long, he couldn't remember a single thing. He had probably envisioned lights in every direction, so to disperse any remaining secrecy and dark aspects of a person's life, and an overall warm, welcoming atmosphere. It was hard enough being present at a meeting such as the one the man attended; it was embarrassing, really, and he had a strange feeling it wouldn't be a onetime trip. What he found was none of the above; not even the air was warm in the old church building with not a heater in sight, and the stoic expressions of the other faces in the crowd of twenty did nothing to brighten the mood. Perhaps it was best then that he couldn't see them – the only lights, located by the front doors, being very dim as they were, prevented that. Somehow, maybe the truth was that the lack of feeling from being unable to lay eyes one the true faces of his peers would be much better in the long run than bearing witness to their selves. After all, no man or woman in the church claimed to be saintly, and most of them didn't claim to be halfway decent people to any extent as well. They belonged in the dark. At least for now they did, until they could one day return the pigment in their eyes to white from pink, their pupils to the proper size, and perhaps finally lose touch with the rather nauseating odor that had accompanied them throughout the years since their first brush with addiction.

He knew it was cynical, but when he braved a glance at one of such affected people that night, he suddenly found himself euphoric that his problem was with dilaudid…

As he sat there, still in that godforsaken – perhaps he shouldn't use that word considering the fact that he was in a house of God himself… - seat that he had been since his arrival, and let the words of his peers wash by him, he came to see that 'wash by' was a rather accurate description of what those words did. He couldn't recall a particular element to anyone's story of how their life spun off the track, but he didn't feel he needed to. For the most part, it was the same damn song every time – my mother never loved me, my father never had time for me, I had no friends… He could recite tales such as those in his sleep, and he was sure he did every night the nightmares of his own experiences ceased to plague him. It was cold, he knew, but he didn't care to hear their routine explanations for why they turned to their drugs of choice, as knowing why probably wouldn't help them recover more easily, no matter what the shrinks could say. No matter what anyone could say. After all, he was quite in touch with the cause of his addiction, and it only made it harder to resist the drugs. At least with the opiate rushing through his veins, he couldn't see the face – that stone, emotionless face that still somehow managed to strike fear in to his heart with the vibe of twisted righteousness it emitted. He knew taking the drugs was wrong; he tried his hardest to resist the urge to shoot up in the bathroom of the BAU. But when the memories of Rafael and Tobias Hankel were especially clear, a state many times achieved after working on a trying case or one that was similar to his capture in some way, that resistance was the most difficult thing in the world. At times like those, he would do anything to forget what had happened. It was wrong, but it certainly didn't seem so then.

The growing silence in the room was what cued him back into reality, and more specifically, that it was his turn to speak. He didn't think about it – the clean cops meetings had done enough for him to grow accustomed to talking about drugs before people – but that in no way meant he was to relate the exact truth of the matter. It didn't make complete sense to him – why someone would share such personal, painful information with people whom they barely knew – mere voices who would monotonously reply "Hello" when that someone introduced themselves. He altogether ignored the anticipated dull response to his greeting, this "Hello" succeeded by "Spencer" and attempted to not look to anyone or anything in particular while he told his agonizing tale – the pg version of it, as it were, for it lacked all elements of kidnapping, torture, and playing God. He, in his tale, made an old yet troubled friend of Rafael, and death and pain were entirely gone. He couldn't bear to mention the name of Tobias; he could barely picture his face – not Rafael's – as it was. Somehow, with all his team had told him since his rescue, he never did get over the feeling he had that he'd killed an innocent man. In his mind, Tobias had only wished to please others, end suffering, and all in all do the right thing; he would never hurt anyone. He had saved his life in the end, truly, and that was what ate away at the young man. Tobias had saved his life and in return he had taken Tobias' away.

As hard as Reid tried, however, there was something in the room that caught his eye, or rather, his mental eye. He had to admit that he couldn't exactly see who it what that his eyes were drawn to – he couldn't make out many facial features in any case. The girl wasn't memorable to him; she must not have told her story yet, for he would find it impossible to miss anything someone of the sort said about him. She was watching him, that he felt, but with her eyes downcast at the floor; she knew he was there, she listened intently to what he said – pushing her chair slightly closer to him was a sign that she acknowledged his presence and was interested in it – but she dared not look up for the first moments of his narrative. Something was different about her – a different vibe than all the rest of the junkies present. There was a sense of self confidence and stability that others in the room did not have – that most addicts did not have. It was as though she had nothing she needed help with at this conference but was looking for something else; maybe it was the final weeks of her healing period before she never came to another meeting again.

He was sure of the vibe; she did not need a drug. She was not here desperately trying to control her urges. Whatever she had in life, she was satisfied with it.

That was why he dragged on as he spoke – why he purposely filled his sentences with adjectives and "ums" and other meaningless sounds that would take up time. It was selfish, but he wanted this young lady to look up so that he could see her face and be done with it. He hoped that when he took one look at her eyes he would see that the feeling he had was only an act of hers; that he would see the bloodshot, tired eyes of an addict and dismiss any thoughts he had as silly – pointless. He did not want to feel that there was something she knew that he did not because he would be overcome by the desire to ask her what it was – how to make it through the transition. He did not want to share his experiences with anyone. He never shared them with his coworkers, actually; they only knew what they saw on the screens in Tobias'…Rafael's house. But if she was so at ease with her life as he feared she was, he needed to know how she did it with whatever skeletons lay in her closet. He wanted to believe he could heal – never have a dream about that little shack on the plantation again.

No matter how he rambled on and wasted more time than anyone could measure, the girl did not once look up to his face, and so after however long he decided it had been a useless idea in the first place and ceased in speaking rather abruptly. He took his seat in a hurry for some reason, having the strangely intense desire to feel the uncomfortable wood again and waited for something – anything – to happen. There were no more words to be said – that was his fear – and for a long while the other members of the group did no more than twitch in their chairs. Reid was quite an aware man; it was rare that he missed anything at a scene, including areas about him, but he heard absolutely nothing but the creaking of the members' chairs as they rocked side to side without control. That was why he was given a start when a casual, distinctly female voice appeared in the church, riding the air past his ears with the most clarity he'd heard that night. There was no doubt in his mind who it was – that self-assured girl he had been hoping to lay eyes on and be disappointed by – and he quickly jerked his head in her direction to do as he'd wished to. He didn't stop to think about it, but it really was odd how eager he was to make eye contact with a drug addict, especially after all the time he'd spent telling himself he would never sink to "their" level – would never be like "them". He was beginning to realize with these meetings that there was no "them"; there were only individual, equally damaged goods.

However when he did see her, and listen to her story – as she claimed it was, that is – he found himself disappointed, but for another reason – inconsistency. Her face was strong, hollowed about her cheeks by lack of food and the price of addiction, despite once having the appearance of every young lady's. Her eyes were not so tired as they were determined, whether to remain awake and breathing or to find another sorry soul to listen to her he could not discern. There was no trace of red in her blue-gray eyes to suggest she was dearly missing her drug of choice, and to add to that, there was no other evidence to suggest the same at all. For a woman of as short and slight stature as she was, she stood remarkably tall, practically dwarfing those who were seated near her even though they had at least five inches on the top of her head. It was as he feared; this girl was clearly handling her addiction with more grace than he was, and that desire to speak with her came flooding through him. She had found the way out – he felt he knew that – and he needed to find the same before anyone at the BAU decided it wasn't worth it to wait for him. That referred to his direct coworkers – his team – but in truth if the tales of his ailments ever made it past the ears of the higher ups – Agent Erin Strauss in particular – there was absolutely nothing he could do to keep his job. The FBI had a strict policy meant to keep its agents clean and doing their best; it was difficult enough to follow any routine at all when under the influence, let alone battle crime. There was no leniency, and the fact that Reid's immediate superior had purposely omitted the use of drugs during his kidnapping would be enough to bury them both if the story got out. If there was one thing Reid hated it was to be a bother; he was enough of one already, so he felt, and he'd be damned to see a good agent lose his position because he was trying to protect him. He knew it was bound to happen because of how often he found himself in harm's way – physical or not – but he did his best to put off the collision. After all Hotch did for him, it was the least he could do…and the most as well.

Blinking brought him back to the church, lifting his thoughts out of the endlessly deep pit they'd fallen into by musing on just how badly his life was going. Of course, blinking wasn't the only thing that caused him to refocus on the meeting, no; there was also the fact that he felt a pair of eyes on him. It had been a small feeling at first – not uncomfortable and more of a "simply there" sort of thing – but the more he managed to ignore it, the more bothered he became. It was then that he stopped thinking of his team and subtly looked around, moving his eyes only, for the culprit, as it were, and it took him no time at all to realize who it was. When the knowledge came to him, he wondered why he hadn't known from the start because he'd already suspected something of the sort…and after all, most of the people in the church that evening couldn't keep still long enough to give anyone a straight stare. It was those gray eyes that burned holes through his being, locked on him and him alone even as their owner technically addressed the entirety of the audience. She didn't seem to care for anyone save him about her; the others were not but random people that had wandered into her field of view.

It was eerie; that was what he knew he should think. It was rude to stare, but for some reason, he didn't agree with himself on that note. There was a sense of equality – a connection – when he locked eyes with her that he didn't wish to lose; they hadn't even met, but she _knew._ As much as he had completely skewed the explanation of how he developed his addiction – as sturdy a wall as he had built around the truth – she saw though it. There was no way she was aware of what exactly had taken place – he doubted he himself was – but there was a certainty that she knew his story was complete nonsense.

As he knew hers was.

It had taken him a few moments to notice that he hadn't been listening to her at all – her words had flown by him leaving no impression whatsoever in his memory. For how eager he had been to hear her speak – to learn her story of how she overcame her past – he had barely seen her rise from her chair. It was the dark thoughts again, he figured; the thoughts that told him how there was no way anything could work out in a way that favored everyone. Those thoughts were quite consuming; they commanded complete attention, selfish little creatures. When he realized he was giving in to them again, he shook his head and looked back to the woman but disappointedly saw that she had once again taken her seat. There was another woman speaking this time – a much less clear voice, this one had, and he found no energy to endeavor to hear her. It wasn't important for him to know the story of every single druggie in the world – in fact, he didn't feel he needed to know the story of any of them save the woman he had regrettably failed to hear. She did not watch the current speaker either, he saw, and had resumed staring down at the floor beneath her feet; the connection he had felt between she and himself was completely gone.

The sense of loss he experienced knowing that – that whatever linked the two of them had disappeared when the woman turned away – was much more overwhelming than he had imagined it could be, and it grew increasingly sharp as a pain in his heart with every minute he spent trying to find those eyes again. There was no time, at least the concept of its passing, as there was no noise or people in the room. There was not even a room, truly – nothing but a shadowy plain with two figures standing at quite a distance from each other. The intensity of the pain was unexpected – it would seem foolish to be so affected by someone whose name he could not recall. But he supposed he shouldn't be so surprised; as of late, he had difficulty connecting with anyone at all. His content – sometimes jovial even – manner while amongst his teammates that had once appeared so real and natural had recently been only an act. He was playing a role; he was playing the man he used to be before Tobias Hankel. A smile on his face no longer meant a smile in his heart. Yet with that woman – maybe it was because she had gone through the same phase in life as he, or perhaps another reason – something was there. He couldn't define what, but an unidentified "what" was still much more than "nothing". And he had been feeling a Hell of a lot of "nothing" for some fair amount of time.

It was terribly illogical and pointless – to have such emptiness inside given the circumstances of the situation – and knowing that only agitated Reid further as he sauntered out through the doors, the meeting forgotten in his mind. His eyes were wet. Cursing himself, he resisted the ever so tantalizing urge to run his fist into the wall closest to him.

"Hey, wait up!"

The familiarity of the voice caused the young agent to whip his head around and survey the scene, trying to see who had spoken even though he already knew. It was that woman – girl, really, the more he looked at her – the one with the gray eyes. Apparently he would be faced with her after all, even as he was just deciding it was better that he hadn't spoken with her before leaving; how ironic. He tried to smile at her but found it near impossible; his facial muscles were quick to move but his mind held them back, warning them against the act. If he smiled, it would be fake, and that was his sole reason for speaking with her. He didn't want anything more fake in his life; he wanted reality – a true conversation with a person in with which he shared a true connection of any kind. As far as he knew, he didn't recall how to _truly_ smile…

He saw no reason to learn.

She was close to him now – less than four feet away, and it looked like she was slowing her pace to finally come to a halt. He didn't speak; he had nothing intelligent to say yet, as he couldn't very well greet her without knowing her name. It didn't appear to matter, however. This girl was not intent on giving him the chance to speak; she seized that moment for herself and offered him a small grin. He couldn't say there was anything directly off about the way she smiled to him, no, but in the darkest corners of his mind he wondered if perhaps this meeting with her was not to be as he'd anticipated.

"Spencer…right?" she asked rather casually, despite barely remembering how he had addressed himself in the church, manner. "You got a minute?"

He nodded. "I think so." It probably came out as a most awkward squeak, but to him, those three words seemed to be the best he could have chosen in any amount of time.

Apparently, this woman was more intelligent than he may have given her credit for; she immediately recognized that he had no idea whatsoever who she was. "Name's Angie – I guessed you didn't recall." Her accent was strikingly different from his own, and from all those with whom he had immediate contact. He was no expert, but judging by how heavy it was, drenching every word she spoke, he suspected she'd come from at least half a life in New York. She looked back to the darkened windows of the church as though making sure no one was about to hear her. "I also guessed this was your first meeting."

"Good work," he replied, a feeling of nausea beginning to settle in his stomach. This woman was too aware to seem normal, no matter how casually she approached him. "I can tell this isn't yours…" He wanted to ask her what she wanted, no longer seeking conversation even with how the connection had returned, but the words were lost to him.

"Not bad at all," was her retort. "But then again, I guess I give off that air. You could say I'm a veteran, I reckon…" She stopped short and smiled again, wider this time, and it only seemed out of place. "But speaking of that, being a local around these things lets me see countless numbers of troubled people; druggies, drinkers – you name it, I've seen it. They're a dime a dozen, sad folks and users, and they're all in need of one thing; a good detox program. Most of 'em I smile at when they recover, now that they see how better they're lives are gonna be, but…" She studied him for a moment as if contemplating what to say.

"But…?"

"But then there are people when you wonder why the Hell they try because they're obviously too screwed up for a life without their substance of choice…and I saw you today, Spencer; you're one of 'em, aren't you?"

Her words felt like a slap in the face and yet one that he deserved. 'Too screwed up for life without the drug'…? As much as he hated to think about it, she was probably right; he never had been able to stop thinking about the pain that was inflicted upon him in that shack. At first he had envisioned that when the withdrawal left him it would take the sickening memories with it, but that hadn't been the case. The cravings came back, almost too intense to ignore that he actually thought of shooting up at FBI headquarters, and the memories plagued him every single night and even day. He had lost a part of his sanity – a part of himself – over the course of those two days he'd spent with the serial killer, and there were many times when it seemed that the drug was the only way of getting it back.

But a drug was a drug, and he would never reduce himself to that again. It wasn't that he couldn't do it to himself; he couldn't do it to Hotch – after all he'd done to help him – and JJ – after all the guilt she already felt for his being taken.

"I don't know what you mean." He lied, but he wasn't fond of the alternative option; confronting this Angie and sparking an argument. He had always been passive in nature…

"Sure you do, but if you wanna play dumb that's fine with me…" It looked like there was no avoiding this discussion, short of him running away. The thought did cross his mind. "Most of those people in there were too busy having muscle spasms to notice, but it's as clear as day to me that someone like you who gets up to tell a bull shit story while biting his lip and stuttering has a problem deeper than any addiction. If this is your first meeting, then it's only another thing you've tried to fix yourself because nothing else has worked. Now I know what they say…" She rolled her eyes. "Talking makes it better, support groups are the way to go, but let me tell you that when you're troubled by as harsh a matter as I believe you are, it's all useless – pain's there to stay."

He bristled, knowing she again was correct in her assumption…if it was one. She very well could know from experience. "A-and you're point is…?"

"Don't waste your time with it; you'll only hurt yourself more. You're body's dying for dilaudid, I could tell; that's souped up heroin for God's sake, and you don't need the strain it puts on you. I know how most people think this thing goes; you get addicted and getting clean is the best thing you could do, but it's all talk. For some people, the addiction's the only way they can make it through the day…or night, which I envision is what gives you grief." She took another step towards him. "It gets worse with every time you deny the craving; you know it does, I'm sure. I can help you."

He quickly stepped back as though the sight of her horrified him. It didn't; the expression on his usually so fair visage was due to her suggestion. "How – by getting me re-hooked on drugs? I don't…"

"Don't be stupid, Spencer; I can't hook you on something you're already on. If you'd quit you wouldn't be here debating this with me; you'd have told me off with your back turned. Come on; kid, you know it's the way for you."

"No!" he snapped, feeling his pulse quicken. His voice was an octave higher than usual. "I came all this way to be clean and keep people believing in me and my abilities as a person, and I'm not going to just throw it all away for a damn drug! Leaving the law on the side, it's not 'the way' for me; thinking it is will be letting both them and myself down. You think heroin is more important than my life to me…?"

She blinked; had he been calmer, he would have wondered why she wasn't growing anywhere near as angered as he – he _was_ shouting at her, after all. "Listen to yourself, Spencer… All you've mentioned is 'them' believing in you and letting 'them' down. You don't have a life of your own right now; that I can tell. You're living to please, living to be what they're looking for, but that's not living. That's lasting from day to day and praying to whatever God you've got nothing more will go wrong when you know in your heart something will. But you could take yourself back if you could find the strength, and you won't find it while battling with opiate cravings because trust me, they always win."

"That's…! That's not…" He grew increasingly quiet the more her words sunk into his brain…and the more true they came to seem.

With a sigh, the young lady shook her head and looked back to the church once more, fully aware that there would be no convincing the doctor that evening. Angie – he thought that was what she'd called herself – didn't seem put off by that knowledge in the slightest; in fact, it was evidently what she had been anticipating all along. Perhaps she had lost the battle, but…he didn't want to think about the rest of the phrase – about her winning the war. Her words had begun to undo his sense of the world and how it operated; he wasn't admitting any agreement with her, but he acknowledged that a new philosophy had been brought before him that made some sense…if he was one to believe in that. He should like to think he wasn't; Hotch would kill him if he heard him say such a thing.

But then he tried not to think of Hotch for that had been Angie's point; he lived to keep that man believing in him.

Her words that came later passed with the breeze, but not over him as much as through him. He did not hear them with his ears, but in his mind, it was as if the letters were carved in stone.

"I won't expect to change your mind tonight, but if you reconsider, come here at the same time for next week's meeting. If you want to come and ignore me that's fine – and I'll leave you be – but if you want to have a real second shot at life, you come and talk to me."

And that was when she exited; as though on stage she passed him by and walked off to the side behind the curtain, only in this production the side was the endless street and the curtain was the thick blackness of night. And he stood there, his eyes open as wide as they could be but as blank as slates, mirroring his mental state – lost.

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And that'll be chapter one. Right now I think I have most of this story worked out, but there are still a few fuzzy spots and kinks. Any advice is welcome and I follow the policy of responding to all reviews and reviewing the author's work.

Thank you again!


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